Laura Ross
i fought in a war Laura Ross probably doesn't like you. That comes from nobody's side of the family; both her mother and father were fairly loving people, although her father, the Colonel, did believe in the strict adherence to rules and schedules, and her mother, a charming city girl from Upper Manhattan, generally exuded an air of being hurried and harassed. They moved around the country a good deal before settling in a very nice part of Manhattan for the last two years of Laura's time at school. It was a private school, but she was extremely book-dumb, and never had good grades or much in the way of a rapport with her teachers, who more often than not disliked her very much. She argued with everyone. She was never friendly. She had been born into a body made of bony angles and unwelcoming muscles. But she had also noticed that pretty things were usually easy to break, so she decided it was just as well. When she was seventeen she joined the United States military with the Colonel's (very proud) parental consent. She served a six-year tour of duty in Iraq and came home in 2008. well it won't hurt to think of you as if you're waiting It didn't do her a lot of good. Laura returned from Iraq with severe PTSD. The Veteran's Association is not unaware of this fact, and several people on staff there have urged her to see a therapist, but the one she did see tried to infer that her episodes were related to her having been in love with a fellow soldier she saw badly maimed. Laura doesn't believe in being in love. She never went back. She had already decided she wasn't going to go live in her parents' house, not when she blamed the Colonel for being apparently unaffected by his time in the military, and her mother for not knowing how to deal with the PTSD. Having a background of poor education would have made finding a job hard enough in the 2008 economy, but for someone who also experiences flashback sequences, hypervigilance, and tries to hit anyone who touches her, the market is just about unconquerable. Fortunately, in December, the Greek god Hephaestus adopted her as a better source of help around the forge than a couple of gold maidens. there's trouble plenty in this hour Laura didn't trust people much before the war, and she hasn't gotten any better after. As far as she's concerned, people are liable to hurt you whether because they can or because they're not paying attention, and if you don't get hurt then you still have to deal with them acting like idiots. Her skillset includes accuracy with a handgun, rifle, and shotgun; decent hand-to-hand combat; very good sewing, mending, and the most basic of needlework; ability to mix vodka and gatorade without disgust (although she prefers beer); passable cooking, as long as it's nothing too exciting; and efficiency when it comes to cleaning things. She can also fix a car, if the problem is under the hood. She knows how to navigate New York, and if you try to be nice to her she'll probably think you're making fun of her. The fellow soldier was named Jack, and he was injured when a carbomb went off; his leg exploded all over her face. It's her most common flashback, the one that keeps her from sleeping at night, the one she sees when there's a sudden loud noise she wasn't expecting. She wears mainly black and earth tones, tank tops, turtlenecks, and jeans. She's never gotten out of the habit of wearing big stompy boots, and her hair is usually pulled back in a severe ponytail. When Laura tries to think about living she feels a dead weight, like something heavy laid on her chest that squashes her diaphragm and makes it almost impossible to breathe properly. Reintegrating into a world she was never very good at navigating to begin with is a completely overwhelming idea, and the only way she can approach it is with sarcasm and meanness. She has never ever considered suicide, because on the very worst days it feels like she is already dead. Anyway, there isn't supposed to be anything in this world she can't handle by yelling at it and kicking it with her combat boots. a corpse that just fell into me Don Draper. She might like him. Some of the time. But especially if he gives her more cigarettes. Morgana. Laura works for her. St. George. Likes him a lot, actually. War wounds are their shared interest. Mordred. But she doesn't know that yet. Michael Anders. She could handle having him for a psychiatrist, probably. because I'll be here quite a while Laura is an expy of Zara from the Westmark series by Lloyd Alexander, but she's about three-quarters my own. Robin Wright Penn belongs to herself. Lyrics are from "I Fought in a War", by Belle and Sebastian. Category:Characters Category:Living